


stuck in limbo with you

by kaci3PO



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: 3x05 fill-in fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 17:50:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaci3PO/pseuds/kaci3PO
Summary: It becomes routine: wake up in the morning, lay the tiles, get discouraged, start drinking heavily before noon, lay the tiles again, drink more while trying not to have an existential crisis, and finish up the day by riding Eliot's dick until they both pass out. Then wake up and do it all over again.





	stuck in limbo with you

Sex with Eliot is different than most of the sex Quentin's had in his life. Not just because Eliot is exceedingly good at it (and holy shit, is he _good_ at it), but because the boundaries between them are always changing; Quentin can never quite tell exactly what they are to each other.

It should be easy; Quentin loves Alice (or who she used to be, at least), and Eliot is his friend. But at this point, he and Alice have been broken up longer than they were ever together and with each passing day in Fillory, their relationship seems to become more and more of a distant memory.

Granted, Eliot's never been shy about expressing his attraction to Quentin, and Quentin can admit to himself that Eliot's hot, but that's all it's ever been. Even now, when they're having sex three or four times a week, it's not like it means anything. Eventually they're going to crack this puzzle and go back to their real lives. Eliot has a wife and a fiance to worry about. There's no room for Quentin even if they both wanted there to be.

So they work on the mosaic, drink, and have sex. It becomes routine: wake up in the morning, lay the tiles, get discouraged, start drinking heavily before noon, lay the tiles again, drink more while trying not to have an existential crisis, and finish up the day by riding Eliot's dick until they both pass out. Then wake up and do it all over again the next day.

***

"Hey, Q?"

Quentin slows his pace, coming to a halt fully seated on Eliot's lap. Eliot is propped up against the headboard, looking languid as fuck for a guy Quentin's been riding for the last twenty minutes.

"Something wrong?"

"Not at all," Eliot answers. He reaches out and tweaks one of Quentin's nipples in what Quentin is sure is meant to be a playful move. It just makes Quentin want to start moving again.

"Then—"

"I—" Eliot starts, and then stops himself just as quickly. "I just really like doing this with you," he says finally, looking everywhere _but_ at Quentin.

"Yeah," Quentin says, trying and failing to suppress a snort. "It feels really good."

He starts moving again. Eliot opens his mouth, then closes it, and doesn't look directly at him again for the rest of the night.

***

Quentin has always considered himself bi, though until now he's tended to date more women than men, on average. Now, three years into the quest, he's been sleeping with Eliot — and only Eliot — for the last two years. He's gotten pretty good at it, and even Eliot thinks so. Sometimes Quentin will blow him and Eliot, always-has-something-to-say Eliot, is speechless for a solid twenty minutes after. Quentin can't help but be a little smug about it, but Eliot takes it in stride, laughing with him and then flipping them over to prove that he's still the undisputed 'High King of F...elatio'. (Quentin hates that term, like the childhood-ruining monstrosity that it is. Eliot gleefully continues its use on purpose.)

This thing with Eliot is easy, weirdly enough. The mosaic, their continued frustration, wondering about their friends...that's all hard, but whatever they're pointedly not naming that's between them, it's as easy as breathing. It's weird how being in bed with Eliot is the only time he ever feels relaxed anymore. And it's not just because of the orgasms.

***

"Hey."

Quentin looks up from the mosaic, idly placing a green tile in a corner spot. He's not even halfway done with this morning's attempt.

"Hey. Thanks," he says back and happily takes the glass of water that Eliot is holding out for him. It's summer in Fillory and way too hot to be doing this shit.

Eliot sits down cross-legged a few feet away and idly turns over one of the red tiles in his hands. He doesn't place it — knows better than to interrupt Quentin's system — but he stares at it like it's the most fascinating thing in the world.

"You okay?" Quentin asks.

Eliot takes a bracing breath and meets his eyes. "Listen, this is one of those times where I have to tell you something uncomfortable so I'm just going to spit it out and get it over with, alright? I love you. Okay? Good talk."

He stands up and starts to walk back towards the cottage, leaving Quentin sitting there blinking at the spot he just vacated and feeling like an idiot.

"Wait!" he finally manages. "What— What does that mean? You love me?"

Eliot closes his eyes and presses a fist to his temple in what appears to be an overwhelming moment of frustration. "It means I'm in love with you," he says, eyes still closed. "And it's not a big deal, it's just a thing that's happening, and we're kind of in this shit together at this point so I figured I should keep you apprised of the situation."

He turns toward the cottage again. Quentin gets to his feet and grabs him by the arm, stopping his progress.

"Wait!" he says again. "Will you just— Eliot, for fuck's sake."

"Look, I don't— I'm not— Emotionally stable and healthy is not a part of either of our balanced breakfasts," Eliot says, audibly bitter. "And I don't even know if you— if I'm just convenient because you're stuck here in Fillorian limbo with me, or if— But hey, ignore me, okay? I just figured it wasn't fair to keep fucking you when it's become something else for me, alright? False pretenses. That's all."

"Eliot—"

Eliot sighs heavily. "I'll make this really simple for you, Q. Who are you in love with?"

Quentin opens his mouth and then closes it again. His first instinct is to say, "Alice," but his second reminds him that until Eliot asked, Quentin actually hadn't thought about her in awhile. He immediately feels guilty; it's been a long time since he thought about _any_ of their friends. After so long of just Eliot for company, their friends became less a day-to-day pang of wanting and more of an occasional daydream.

Quentin stares down at his feet, half completely confused and half overwhelmed with guilt for letting their friends slip from his mind like that. He's almost sure they haven't forgotten him and Eliot.

"See?" Eliot says defiantly. "Simple."

He turns and walks back into the cottage.

When Quentin finally comes inside later that evening, their beds have been separated once more and Eliot's already asleep (or, at least, pretending to be) in one with his back to the door. Quentin watches him sleep for a long time that night, completely confused about what's happened.

***

They stop having sex. Things between them recede to something more akin to how it was when they first arrived in Fillory— they're still friends, and Eliot is just as comforting about their mosaic frustrations as he ever was, but they don't talk about his blow up and they continue to sleep separately.

It's gutting how much Quentin misses it.

It's not just the getting off that he misses, although he's certainly got his frustrations on that front. It's that it feels like a huge part of the two of them is missing. He never thought of having sex with Eliot as being like dating because it had felt like such an extension of their friendship, of who they _already_ were, that it never occurred to him to think of it as something more.

So he's angry and frustrated and sexually confused, and they're still getting _absolutely nowhere_ with the mosaic.

"We could be done tomorrow, for all you know," Eliot says. He might be going for encouraging, but mostly he just sounds pissed off. It's weirdly comforting to see a crack in his armor. "We can't just throw away all this time we've invested."

Quentin doesn't have to be a master of subtext to understand the real point: _"_ This _can't have all been for nothing."_

Quentin drops into a chair and rubs at his head, staring blankly at the tiles. He wants to break every god damned one of them.

"You want to live your life?" Eliot snaps, now harsher than he began. " _Live it here._ "

"What is that supposed to mean?" Quentin shoots back. Right now, 'all for nothing' is _exactly_ how this feels.

"You know _exactly_ what that means," Eliot bites out, looking away from Quentin, fussing with tiles on the table. He's barely been looking Quentin in the eye for the last few days and suddenly Quentin is so fucking pissed at him that he wants to shove a couple of the tiles into Eliot's big fucking mouth.

Instead, he stands and kicks over several stacks of carefully organized tiles and waits for Eliot to turn around, fuming.

"Oops," he says pointedly.

Eliot stares at him for a long moment and then he's gripping Quentin by the front of his shirt and shoving him against the door of the cottage. It's not the first time Quentin's been thrown against a wall by an angry man, although it is the first time that said angry man has proceeded to kiss him, hard, pausing only long enough to ensure Quentin isn't going to ask him to stop before biting his lip hard enough that it bleeds.

Quentin growls instinctively and bites back, the bitter copper taste of their combined blood making him break the kiss long enough to make the same check-in with Eliot.

Eliot is panting and pressing Quentin into the wood, hard against Quentin's thigh already. Quentin has no idea why it's hot — being manhandled like this, Eliot being rough with his kisses, Eliot grinding against him and using Quentin to let off some of his anger — but it _is_ , and Quentin's just as hard himself.

Eliot has control of what's happening, but Quentin doesn't make it easy for him, giving more or less as good as he's getting until Eliot shoves both of their pants down, tugging Quentin's completely off, and lifts him bodily up against the door.

He hesitates, as if for one brief moment he suddenly realizes that they don't do this anymore. (And it certainly was never like _this_ even when they did.)

"C'mon," Quentin encourages, gasping and out of breath. "Do it."

He goes through the spell motions he's seen Eliot do probably hundreds of times over the last two years, moaning when he feels it take effect and leaves him slick and open and ready. "It's alright, Eliot," he says, and fists both hands into Eliot's curls and tugs.

Eliot groans and presses into him, fucking him hard and fast. Quentin has no leverage in this position, no way to do anything but take it, and fuck, since when does he find the idea of being a little helpless absurdly hot? Eliot has his face pressed into Quentin's shoulder, not looking at him, so Quentin tightens his legs around Eliot's hips and moans shamelessly, coming hard between their stomachs not long after.

Eliot all but slumps to the ground when it's over, looking exhausted and miserable.

Quentin takes a few minutes to clean himself up and then joins him, sitting on the ground next to him so they can both stare straight ahead instead of at each other. He lets the silence between them sit until he simply can't stand it a second longer.

"Eliot," he says, "I think I owe you an apology."

"What?" Eliot snorts bitterly. "No. I owe you one."

Quentin shrugs. "Maybe we both owe each other one, but I want to go first. I'm sorry I didn't react very well when you told me that you loved me. I guess...I guess you're right. I've still been thinking of all this like...like being on vacation, I guess? Where you get to go away from your real life for a little while, and you do things you wouldn't normally do, because hey, it's vacation! But you always know in the back of your mind that you'll have to go back to your real life eventually, and deal with all your shit back home."

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "But this isn't a vacation," he continues. "This isn't an escape anymore. This _is_ our real lives. This is...it's _all_ real. It's all _happening_ . It's been— fuck, it's been over three years now. Our lives haven't been on hold, they've been happening _right here_ in Fillory. _My life_ has been happening right here in Fillory." Then, softer, "With _you_."

He can _hear_ Eliot swallow.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Quentin reaches over and takes Eliot's hand in his. "So this is me, being uncomfortably honest with _you_ , Eliot," he mimics. "I love you, too." Beside him, Eliot gasps and squeezes his hand tight. "And I feel guilty for it," he continues. "And that's stupid. Because our friends aren't here, Eliot. _We_ are. And this...it's _good_ . _We_ are good. So can we please go back to the way things were? I'll even call it ' _making love_ ' from now on if it'll make you feel better."

Eliot makes a sound that's a mixture of a snort and a scoff. "Gods," he says. His voice sounds wet. "You'd better _not_."

"Okay," Quentin grins, finally turning to look him in the eye. "Then I won't."

"But you love me?" Eliot asks, like he fully expects the answer to be, _"Nah, on second thought, just kidding!"_

"Yes," Quentin says firmly. " _Yes._ "

They push the beds back together that very night.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I have no further ideas for fics so I'm just gonna go back to lurking in this fandom.  
> Me, five minutes later: Hey, so what was, "You want to live your life, live it here. [...] You know exactly what that means," about?
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> P.S. Has it been discussed yet that after Quentin kisses Eliot on the mosaic, after he gives him that little sheepish smile and it cuts to the wide shot so you see Eliot cover one of Quentin's hands with his, that Quentin's other hand makes this little, "yeah, so that happened..." gesture that is KILLING ME WHERE I STAND? Because...that's a thing that needs discussing. H E L P


End file.
